Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Rumble Strip Update

In November 2008 Bryan brought the Rumbling of SR109 to our attention. Bruce and I made a few telephone calls and pulled together an impromptu meeting with TDOT, Leslie Mehan (MPO), Glen Wanner, Pat Clements, Tim Nichols, and Jeff Sammons to voice our complaint. Subsequent to that meeting Big Bob became a movie star as TDOT rep's watch him maneuvering the rumble on SR109. Rumble Strips became a big issue across Tennessee and led to the formation of the corporation Bike Walk Tennessee (with help of Bruce, Tim, David Irvine, and Tom) to give Bike Advocates across the State a unified voice on issues such as this.
Today, in our Statewide Bike/Ped meeting TDOT announced approval by Federal Highway Administration of new Rumbling Standards that would have stopped what is now on SR109 and acknowledged our efforts that led to this change. The new Standards are the most Bike Friendly we have seen in any state.
The bottom line to all of this is - getting involved in government does work! Every voice and every time we participate in public meetings counts. Try it sometime. Don't depend on the few.

1 comment:

KJ said...

that is good news indeed!